With OntarioŐs municipal
elections only a week away, garbage has once again become a burning issue
– literally. According to survey conducted by Decima Research, 91 percent
of Greater Toronto Area (GTA) residents favour garbage incineration. York,
Durham and Niagara regions have already begun the process of getting the
necessary approvals to build one. In response, political candidates are lining
up to support what many consider a practical solution to an otherwise
irresolvable problem. The only notable exception is TorontoŐs current mayor,
David Miller, who opposes any plans to torch TorontoŐs trash.

Regardless of what side of
the debate you stand on, incineration is arguably one of the most emotionally
charged environmental issues ever put on the discussion table. It is also one
of the least understood. On the list of things that should be considered too
good to be true, incineration tops the list. HereŐs a list of facts and
fallacies:

Myth #1: Incinerators
eliminate the need for garbage dumps.

Wrong.
Incinerators donŐt eliminate waste; they simply reduce the volume, historically
to 20 percent of the original volume and 10 percent of the original mass.

It may not
stink, but place an incineration in your community and be prepared to host a
toxic ash dump as well. ThatŐs because when you burn garbage, it produces toxic
ash. This ash ends up in one of two places: the atmosphere or in a toxic waste
facility.

Myth #3: New
technology prevents incinerators from releasing toxic waste into the
atmosphere.

Wrong again.
Thanks to improved scrubbers and filters, most of the toxins are caught by scrubbers
and filters and end up being dumped. However, what they canŐt eliminate are
dioxins from flying up the stack. Dioxins are so toxic that have no known
threshold. In other words, there is no level – ever - at which dioxins
are no longer considered toxic. According to Environment Canada, incinerators
are the single greatest source of dioxins in this country. It is precisely
because of dioxins that David Miller has taken his stand against incineration.

Myth # 4:
Incinerators will only burn trash that canŐt otherwise be recycled.

Perhaps in a
perfect universe. But if we were living in a perfect universe, we wouldnŐt be
up to our eyeballs in garbage. In reality, incinerators are counter-productive
to waste recycling and reduction initiatives, because they compete for the same
materials, most notably paper and plastics. These produce the highest levels of
heat (or BTUs), which are needed to keep the trash burning as cleanly as
possible, and therefore help control the amount of stack emissions (see Myth #3).

Myth #5 –
Having a waste incinerator means we donŐt have to worry about trucking our
garbage around (and hence increase air pollution and smog).

Host communities
will likely end up importing garbage from other communities to keep
temperatures burning high enough to ensure proper combustion. Without a
critical mass of garbage, fires need to be supplemented with an alternative
fuel, usually natural gas, which further increases the cost.

Myth #6 –
Incinerators are a cheap way to get rid of garbage.

"Energy from
waste is not a cheap way to produce power, it is an expensive way to get rid of
garbage," said Nigel Guildford, a board member of the Ontario Waste
Management Association. The cost of burning garbage is roughly $ 50 a tonne
more than landfilling, and thatŐs without taking into consideration all the
associated environmental costs.

Myth #7

Energy from waste
facilities will at least provide much needed electricity.

Wrong again. By
burning materials that could otherwise be recovered or recycled, we have to
factor in the amount of energy required to replace those materials with new
products. For example, the amount of energy that it takes to produce a single
aluminum can could power a laptop computer for two hours, or the family
television for three hours. Energy saving? No.

Make no mistake
– this will be a burning issue for the next four years in Ontario. On
November 13th we need to elect educated politicians who fully
understand the true environmental, economic and social costs of incineration,
and are willing to take a courageous and likely unpopular stand against them.

As voter, we also
have a responsibility to find out where local candidates stand on this and
other important issues and then votes to minimize the impact on your Earth.